Corpus Christi, South Texas.

Corpus Christi is a small town, and there are more than 3,000 people here, but the population of the town itself is less than 100, and the remaining 3,000 are American troops stationed here.

Brigadier General Zachary Taylor is the commander of this army.

The 60-year-old veteran has been stationed in Corpus Christi for half a year, and President Polk had asked him to go here half a year before.

Half a year of stationing made General Taylor and the three thousand soldiers feel a little restless.

Until one day in March.

"God, it's finally here!" General Taylor looked like a big man, unkempt and with a straw in his mouth, eager to unpack the presidential order that had just arrived.

Although he was almost anxious to tear the envelope in half, after taking out the order, he handed it to a young man beside him: "Bliss, you read it for me, you know I'm not very good at this." ”

Zachary Taylor has been criticized for his level of literacy, and his writing ability has even been described as "almost illiterate".

Bliss, who looked to be in his early thirties, tall and thin, with a beard and beard, took the letter: "General, Mr. President orders us to go at once to the Rio Grande and build a stronghold. If the Mexicans shoot, we should immediately return fire. ”

Taylor laughed: "Good, that's it!" The Mexicans fired the first shot at us, and then we put half of Mexico on the map of the United States! ”

The area around the Rio Grande is a disputed area between the two countries, and the U.S. military ran there to build a stronghold, almost kicking the nose in the face, and it is no wonder that the Mexicans do not fight back.

Taylor then gathered some of his subordinates to discuss a concrete plan of action, and the results were quickly reached.

The main reason for the swiftness of the action was that there was no such thing as a negotiation process, and the plan was made by almost one person, his right-hand man, William Bliss.

William Bliss was an unquestionable genius who worked as an assistant professor of mathematics at West Point at the age of nineteen.

He was sent to Taylor's side, presumably to neutralize Taylor's reckless temperament that exudes from the inside out.

As it turned out, their combination was pretty good. Taylor trusted the young man so much that he even considered asking his daughter to marry him.

"Let me take a look at the route." General Taylor pointed to the map on the table, "We should be crossing rivers, forests, and narrow paths before we reach our destination. So I thought, we should go in batches. ”

"Going in batches?"

Taylor nodded: "That's right, our army is too large, almost three thousand people. I am afraid that the soldiers will not be able to pass through these places quickly. ”

People were convinced.

From the perspective of the vast majority of people in North America at this time, 3,000 people is indeed a large-scale army.

Taylor continued his plan: "I intend to leave five hundred men here, leaving two thousand five hundred, divided into three brigades plus a cavalry regiment, in four groups in total, with a day apart. ”

A few days later, the American army of 2,500 men set out south in four groups, arriving on the north bank of the Rio Grande, across the river from the Mexican Matamoros.

Once at the place, the American army immediately set about building a fortress. More than 2,000 people worked overtime every day, and it took a month and a half to build the fortress.

I don't know if it's intentional or not, the location of this fortress is quite bad.

It was almost exactly within the range of Matamoros' fire.

While the fort was being built, Zachary Taylor left with a large army to replenish supplies and troops at a military base not far to the north.

So, the Mexicans did not hesitate to launch an attack on the American fortress, surrounding the soldiers stationed in the fortress.

Soon after, General Taylor returned to the fortress with his troops with various supplies, successfully relieving the trapped defenders and defeating Matamoros in one fell swoop.

On 18 May, Taylor captured Matamoros.

On May 23, Mexico officially declared war on the United States.

The Mexican-American War began.

Mexico's official declaration of war was May 23, but by the time the horse whistle got the news, it was already June.

And not long after, he also saw an article in the newspaper.

The content of the article didn't matter, an anti-war article that went almost unnoticed and barely had any impact.

But the author of the article made Ma Whistle's eyes streak.

"Illinois, Whig Congressman, Abraham Lincoln......"

After a cursory glance at the article, he determined that this Lincoln was either the same name, or the famous President Lincoln in later generations.

In this article, the author's most important argument against the Mexican-American War is that Texas became a slave state after joining the United States.

During this period, the Illinois Whig Congressman, Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery, apparently could not have had a second man.

At this time, Lincoln was not a president, or even a famous person, just a budding political newcomer, a state legislator in Illinois, and a lawyer.

Realizing that the author was Lincoln, Ma Whistle read the article carefully and pondered how to relate to the future president of the United States.

Lincoln had to be invested.

Before the Civil War, there was probably only one president with whom the horse whistle might have a relationship.

After all, Lincoln's current situation is relatively low, he is still a state legislator, and several other future presidents are at least senior members of Congress, and Zachary Taylor and James Buchanan are generals and secretaries of state.

And Lincoln will have a low point in his life in the future, such as the death of a son or something......

The Mexican-American War is underway.

But so far, the fighting has been concentrated in the south, thousands of miles away from Kansas, and the scale of the battle has been at the level of hundreds of thousands of people.

So apart from the endless reports in the newspapers, the horse whistle has no feeling for this war.

It wasn't until mid-July that the situation changed.

An army marched from the northeastern corner of Kansas toward New Mexico.

The army consisted of more than two thousand people, and the commander was a brigadier general in his fifties, who was tall and thin and looked unsmiling.

"Margofin, are you sure you can convince Amicho?" The brigadier asked, sitting on his horse without looking back.

Not far behind him, a middle-aged man who was a little bowed said with a smile, "Don't worry, General Carney." I know Amicho, a greedy and cowardly man, who will always calculate the terms of surrender as long as he does not have a 100% chance of winning. ”

"With the strength of the Mexican army, they don't even have a 30% chance of winning. We only need to pay a few bribes to walk into Santa Fe with a swagger and not a single bullet! ”

Brigadier General Carney nodded, but said nothing.

After a while he asked, "You're almost in the territory of the Indians, aren't you?" ”

"Yes, General." An officer stepped forward and said, "I've heard recently that the Apache Sleeping Bear Clan around here seems to be growing fast, and we may need to deal with them a little more. ”

"Fast?" Everyone didn't believe what they said, and Margophin laughed and said, "Did these Indians learn to use smoothbore guns?" ”

The officer seemed to stop talking.

General Carney said: "Although the Indians are ignorant, they are not easy to deal with, and there are many Indians in the Midwest, so we should be careful." ”

“…… The Apache have always hated Mexicans, and if we can, we'd better get them to join this war and join us against the Mexicans. ”

Margofin: "It's simple, in my experience, the chieftains of the Indians are more likely to bribe than Amicho. Sometimes they can sell you all the land for a cart of spirits. ”

At this moment, Brigadier General Carney suddenly pulled the reins, stopped in place, and looked at the field in front of him with a frown: "What is that?" ”

Everyone also stopped, followed his gaze and looked ahead, and then their eyes widened in surprise.

"It's ...... A city? ”